Creative Ideas: Elizabeth Gilbert

In some corner of an internet rabbit hole, I came across this video, a TED Talk by Elizabeth Gilbert. While it flew in the face of many of my beliefs, it also opened a few possible venues of thought that I found fascinating and inspiring.

So today, I'm attaching my thoughts to this video. Give it a look and then let's chat...



I believe in the power of people. In fact, the entire reason I play music is to connect with people. A wonder-filled moment of sensing truth or an "Aha!" flash of understanding from the audience fuel my artistry. These aren't otherworldly experiences, they are deeply human.

So you can imagine how hesitant I am to pass these gifts over to some kind of spirit.

However, Elizabeth makes a compelling argument. I have absolutely and repeatedly found myself in the position of questioning whether I can bear my failures - an unavoidable part of the artistic process - or whether pouring myself into something so abstract, subjective, and elusive is just asking for a life of insecurity or disappointment.

I have felt the divine inspiration Elizabeth describes, and I've performed concerts where I just can't seem to find my flow. This tantalizing "divine wonderment" seems to have only the bare minimum relationship to preparation. (Obviously the divine inspiration can't even be accessed if one isn't completely prepared.)

Often times, the industry-standard response to such insecurities is to "toughen up," to close off the part of yourself that is vulnerable to caring about how your work affects the world. But, that vulnerability is essential to my entire reason for creating. To cut out that vulnerability is to sever the lines of authenticity and empathy that catalyze the most intense experiences music has to offer.



Maybe then, Elizabeth's strategy offers a nice psychological tool for creating that little bit of cushion necessary to be completely vulnerable and still survive the darkest moments of living a creative life.

Why I Don't Want to Expose Audiences to Classical Music

Have you ever suddenly become hyper-aware of a word then hear it everywhere? With me, it’s usually the word “like” (which I use far too much as an obnoxious substitute for “um"), but recently the word “exposed” has been hot on my radar.



As presenters in the classical music world, we’ve all said it - we're going to expose someone to classical music. It’s a very convenient way to describe the process of discovery we hope all of our audiences will have.



The thing is, most uses for the word “expose” are negative. It connotes nakedness, uncomfortable vulnerability, unfamiliarity, and bad behavior.

…exposed to the elements…

…exposing a terrible truth…

I know we’re all using “exposed" positively when we talk about music, and it’s true, exposing someone to some kind of knowledge is a completely valid and recognized use of the word. But when we look at the definitions of "expose," its positive meaning is buried among "unprotected," "indecently," or "objectionable."



I think it’s safe to say most musicians don't want their audiences exposed in these ways. But unfortunately, the word is loaded with negative connotations and evokes justifiable feelings of resistance.

Even in the best scenarios, the word feels like a chore or an obligation. Do you imagine being exposed to something to be delightful or just somehow necessary? The "eat your vegetables" mentality is partially caused because "exposure" indicates a total separateness between a person and the thing to which they are being exposed. Rather than uniting someone with their cultural birthright, exposing someone to music sounds foreign and uncomfortable.

Another curious result of using the word “expose” when describing musical experiences is that it negates the active role of listeners. While it can sometimes seem passive, listening to music is an action - absorbing, synthesising, and attempting to understand. The best audience members are anything but passive! Being exposed to something is a passive act during which something is shown to you. Exposure is done to you, not with you.

I propose our role is to share, to facilitate discovery, to reveal.

So much more than near-synonyms, these are words that actually reflect the act of musicking that occurs between a performer and audience member.



As musicians, we spend most of our time working in the realm where words end. But, when we're not performing, words matter. They shape so many of the ways we interact with and, as a result, interpret the world around us.

We have a responsibility to choose our words with care.

So how about it? Let’s all take a look at our mission statements, grant applications, and concert proposals. Let’s check on the words we use when discussing audience development, outreach, program notes, and when speaking to audiences.

There’s no need to expose classical music to that word any more.

Score Binding Basics

These days 90% of my performance parts are PDFs printed on my home printer. Unlike beautiful Urtext scores, these loose leafs are hardly stage-worthy. Over the years I've gotten very accustomed to binding these scores myself.

My former teacher, Ronda Rider, calls it "New Music Arts and Crafts". Obviously, she is the best.



Why tape your pages together? Loose leafs on stage are a risky proposition. All it takes is one wrong page shift, a wobbly stand, or an over-zealous air conditioning unit and you're spilling sheet music all over the stage in a not-quite-performance-art kind of way.

Some musicians manage to tape their pages together but don't bind them into a booklet. Have you ever seen the accordion-style spill of music off a stand? It's not pretty and there's no elegant way to recover on stage.

So, for the sake of getting through the concert in one piece...

How to Bind Your Score: Basic Method

Supplies: music, strong matte (non-shiny) tape




1. Tape all of your pages left/right sides together so the piece is one long row of pages. Leave a small gap between the pages as you tape them. Avoid putting tape where you might like to write notes in the future. Pencil doesn't stick well to tape.



2. Fold your music accordion-style to create an unbound book. Now is the time to check your page turns. Did you get the pages in the right order?



3. With the accordion of pages collapsed down to a stack of papers, turn the soon-to-be spine of your score towards you.



4. Gently separate a set of two page-pairs (the points where you already taped the pages together) and bind them together with a piece of tape perpendicular to the pages.



5. Continue to tape these pairs until there are none left.



6. Now tape the pairs into pairs.



7. Repeat until all of your pages are taped together.

At first your music is going to be a little... voluminous... the tape needs time to get broken in. It's a good idea to tape your music as soon as you get it so you have plenty of time to get comfortable with the new set up.




If the piece you're learning is very long (say more than 15 pages) it might be worth having it printed double sided on nice paper and bound professionally. This Basic Method of binding scores doesn't work well if the score gets too think.

There you have it, a basic plan of attack for binding your music. Of course, there are other fancy ways of binding that include third page fold-outs, blank pages for page turns, and tricks that begin to compete with pop-up-book artists, but in due time... mastering the basic method is an important first step.

Does anyone have any particular type of tape their in love with? I usually use regular ole' scotch tape, but I've seen some nice results with masking tape. Do share...

Choosing Score Paper

How music fits on a stand is probably my most un-sexy musical interest. A true Type A personality, I find it very interesting and it absolutely affects my day-to-day music life.

I've had several conversations with composers and performers about score size/orientation, and I thought it might be time to put all of my thoughts in one place.



(The sizes I'll deal with are the ones you tend to get from composers via pdf. I'm going to ignore 9x12 paper because it's specialty printing. I'll also leave out the standard double 8.5x11 portrait setup. It seems obvious to me that if page turns work out for that size/orientation/number of pages, it's absolutely the best option. I'll also stick to one stand because multiple stands opens up a whole other can of worms. Ok, qualifiers fin)

Spacial Comparison:

Let's start with the most essential analysis - how much music are you actually getting on the stand?

8.5x11 portrait (3 pages per stand) = 290.5

8.5x14 portrait (3 pages per stand) = 357

11x17 portrait (2 pages per stand) = 374

8.5x11 landscape (2 pages per stand) = 187

8.5x14 landscape (1 pages per stand) = 119

11x17 landscape (1 page per stand) = 187

In this comparison, portrait orientation is absolutely the most efficient use of space with 11x17 paper giving you the most space of any paper size.

But stopping there doesn't give you the whole story!

Intangible Comparison:

The size/orientation of music can have unintended effects on the pragmatic experience of making music.

Page Turns: The more music you fit on a stand, theoretically, the fewer page turns you need. This can minimize distracting moments or unwanted sounds during performance, which is especially important as the ensemble gets smaller. (A solo cello piece suffers much more from page turns than an orchestra piece.)

Additionally, page turn difficulty differs instrument to instrument: singers can turn as they need, pianists or some wind instrumentalists can turn when one hand is free, string players can hardly ever turn while playing.

Though it affords more space, page turns can get more complicated or unwieldy with set-ups using 3 pages per stand. The third page often needs to be tucked or untucked during the page turn, which takes additional time.

System Length: Web designers pay a lot of attention to line length and studies show there are optimal lengths for reading ease and comprehension. There are absolutely parallels to reading music - long systems are difficult to read.

Also, the shorter stave systems are, the closer measure numbers are to each other. It seems like an obvious and pointless fact, but infrequent measure numbers mean wasted rehearsal time counting bars. (No, seriously, so much wasted time.) Horizontal page orientations are especially problematic for this reason.



Overhang: Overhang can provide the little extra space on a stand needed to avoid a distracting or difficult page turn. But, large amounts of overhang can result in drooping or falling pages, light issues as stage lights pass through the paper, acoustic interference, and decreased visibility for the audience.

Most of these issues can be fixed with sturdy paper-stock or poster board extensions to the stand, but visibility or acoustics are instrument dependent problems affected by the directional acoustics of the instrument. For example, violinists' music is oriented perpendicularly to the audience, so acoustics and visibility isn't impacted by overhang. On the other hand, a cellists stand is parallel to the audience directly in between the audience and instrument. A huge wall of paper has an acoustic and aesthetic impact.

Another very practical effect of overhang is difficulty writing notes on the score during rehearsal. You can't write easily on any overhang because it isn't supported by the stand. It's obviously a small impact, but worth noting if page sizes with less overhang are an option.

Travel: Large scores are more difficult to transport without damaging them. While 8.5x11 paper easily fits into a protective folder or binder, 8.5x14 and 11x17 paper need to be folded (or risk being crumpled). Why do folds and crumples matter? Besides it being easier to read clean paper, folds and crumples can create shadows under concert lighting or make the music less stable on the stand.

Conclusions:

8.5x11 portrait has the third most space on the stand, minimal overhang, is easy for travel, has a nice system length, and fairly easy page turns. This is always my vote.

A close second is 8.5x14 portrait which has more space on the stand at a cost of slightly more overhang and less convenient travel. I use this set-up frequently as well.

11x17 portrait has the most space on the stand with easy page turns, but is annoying for travel, has long systems, and has inconvenient overhang on the top of the stand. If there are really NO other page turn solutions, this will work out. (Though personally, I'll usually just shrink the music once I know it well enough or write out my own shorthand.)

Landscape orientations are terrible. Really... that's the point of this whole post. Please don't use them. Like, ever.

Did I miss something? Have another reason for or against a certain paper set-up? Let me know in the comments